


It's all we want and it's all that we're fighting for

by EnlacingLines



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Black Paladin Keith (Voltron), Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Red Paladin Lance (Voltron), Sentient Voltron Lions, Tired Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 23:38:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18041297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnlacingLines/pseuds/EnlacingLines
Summary: But Lance is now Red, and he wonders, everyday increasingly, if it feels the same.A discussion on their connections to sentient space lions





	It's all we want and it's all that we're fighting for

**Author's Note:**

> What was meant to be a drabble, and is now a long drabble/short story (?) I wrote for the prompt 'lions.'
> 
> Set in S3, but basically AU. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, hope you all enjoy!

It’s a reverberation; like the bass line of a song you love but can only just recall, stuck in your head forever on end. Their connection to their lions inserts itself so seamlessly, so naturally that Keith fears if it ever drops he’ll loose a part of himself too necessary to comprehend. 

 

Switching lions comes with an aftermath. Frequency change, subtle but crystalline. He cannot sleep for days after the Red Lion picks Lance, attuning himself to a new manner of song. Black is like a rock in the ocean, stable, rooted, battered but unmoving, the one that must remain steady. 

 

Keith does not fit well into that shape, but lets it move through him, lets it connect his frayed edges much as Shiro had done for him so long ago. Feels in Black that bond to his brother, that legacy he will hold up for family and the team; another new spectre of family. The freezing  ache that spreads out in thick tendrils at the thought of his brother’s loss resurfaces, and he swallows against the bleakness. Allows that steady beat of Black to soothe, to remain the same predictable stable sound. It works and he settles, back into what he needs to be. 

 

Red though, he recalls, felt like liquid metal in his veins. She’d speed through, filling out the pieces of him craving the chase and the rush of infinity. It wasn’t so much approval of recklessness but the need for beginnings, to start the fray, to meet what was in sight, to protect even before others needed to move. 

 

Fast gets the first hit, the critical damage. If Keith’s lucky, then his new found family do not even need to feel the fear of striking. 

 

But Lance is now Red, and he wonders, everyday increasingly, if it feels the same. His words could not fully express what being a Paladin of Voltron means; how to describe the second soul twined with his, their existence paralleling so critically. 

 

So he asks. Has learned, with Lance, that he needs to voice wonderings more specifically rather than brooding too long on perceived answers.  The question is posed when Keith is half awake, curled up against Lance, the hum of Black echoing around as he tries to sleep. 

 

Lance yawns, cracks his jaw, stretches a hand to Keith’s hair and sinks his fingers into the parts of his neck that make him unwind, unfurl and sigh into Lance. A trick, a trap but a pleasant one. All these new sensations come with trust and care, so fresh and intoxicating; he hopes it never fades. 

 

“Hmm...Red’s like a rush, I guess. Like when you have too much coffee, or too much sugar or just missed being run over. All at once. I feel invincible but on edge and so glad to be in the moment, to feel alive.”

 

Keith nods, turning his face directly into Lance’s chest, and Lance seems to stutter bodily, but Keith is too tired to mind anything but the loss of fingers in his hair. 

 

“She feels like you.” 

 

Keith sits up, eyes blurring and Lance lifts his hands to support Keith’s face, makes that irritating cooing noise reserved for when he believes Keith is being particularly cute. 

 

Keith tries to focus more, willing Lance to explain, but the feel of comforting hands on his face, caress of tender touches just lulls him, down down and down again. However, Lance seems to sense his need to hear more, cups his hand to Keith’s cheek and smiles, bright in the gloom of the bedroom. 

 

“It’s probably just my imagination. Or, ya know maybe I’m wanting it to be my imagination.” 

 

A trill of an awkward laugh and Keith lowers himself, so he’s propped up, still on Lance’s chest but eye to eye, listening intently as he forces his mind away from sleep and to his reality, to Lance. Lance smiles at the movement, head tilting to encompass more of Keith in his wake. Keith waits, knows Lance likes to look, likes to take snapshots with his mind in moments like this. Romance at its best, the things that once made Keith cringe and hide, that now send shockwaves of  _ want _ and  _ keep _ to his core. 

 

“It feels like you’re there, just...I don’t know, an essence of you. That part of you that always made me want to challenge you and beat you. But now it’s that you’re urging me on, telling me I can keep going, keep hitting, keep flying first. And I know I can, I can see myself doing it without you saying it. But it feels stronger because I have you at my back.” 

 

And it’s better than the words Keith could have wished for, better than anything he could have imagined, so much so that he short circuits into stasis as  _ how does he even begin to address that?  _

 

They are tied through lions, tied through galaxies and split second decisions. Tied to Team Voltron; their family and destiny. Tied to each other: choice, friendship and love. It’s in that moment of pause where Keith just  _ feels _ that he recalls the commencement of this journey. 

 

“Blue felt like you. I wasn’t ever really connect to her, and of course I didn’t know at the time…” Keith hesitates. Finds words, takes a moment to let it all simmer, to say everything in a correct and relatable manner. 

 

“I couldn’t stop hearing her, feeling her. That pull as if I had to know, find her wherever she was. But it was calm, like she trusted I’d come, I’d be the one to make it happen and get there in the end. No judgement, in my own time. Like you, with us, with everything. You trust me, you care and you let me be who I am in the time I need to just...get it.” 

 

Lance reaches, and pulls, but Keith is already halfway there, collision and acceptance, explosion and relaxation. The things that welcome him home and curl his toes in anticipation of ignition. A kiss, the same action as many before but each time filled with a new edge, a difference of perception, a reflection of progression. 

 

They break and Keith is more in love than ever because they are enlaced in one another, reaching, twisting and combining their whole selves with one another.  They allow each other into each dark space, each nook and cranny to make them stronger, together. Not a missing part, but another addition. Much like their lions, they join to do incredible things. 

 

Keith smiles, slips back down to where he was, the hum of his new lion, the memory of his past lion and the feel of Lance’s lips in his hair serenading him into sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/EnlacingL/) and [Tumblr](http://enlacinglineswrites.tumblr.com). Feel free to come and say hi, and read the shorter drabbles I write which don't make it to here.


End file.
